1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of hand-held clay target throwers and, specifically, to a clay target thrower comprising two main components that are each unique unto themselves and that both separately and upon combination, provide for a significantly improved hand-held clay target thrower system. The first main component is a unitary rear-loading flexible wire headend. The second component is a specially formed handle including a self-cocking block component and an impact structure to assist the comfortable, efficient, and effective throwing and launch of a clay target.
2. Description of Related Art
Hand-held clay target throwers have been in use for well over a century, such that the prior art illustrates an on-going interest in developing and perfecting such clay target throwers. These prior art devices have taken many forms, but have in common a means for holding a clay target until a sufficient propelling force is applied to launch the clay target.
One conventional embodiment of a hand-held clay target thrower is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,004 to Huelskamp. This device is a front-loading hand-held thrower for clay pigeons that is formed of a single piece of resilient plastic material. The headend portion of the device has arms with flanges which encircle the pigeon, engaging it on its outermost circumference. It is said that this device has no separately moving parts. The resilient plastic material forming the entirety of the device includes a flexible neck and arms that bend under pressure to release and launch a clay pigeon.
Many hand-held clay target throwers comprise multiple components, including a front-loading headend, a spring actuated launch mechanism, a handle, and other constituents which needlessly complicate manufacture and use of the devices. See e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 1,700,880 to Camp and U.S. Pat. No. 1,865,173 to Dickerman. Other clay target throwers require a multitude of components such as an additional pressure-releasable means to hold the clay target thrower in a cocked position prior to launch, see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,952 to Perkins, or a spring to hold the clay target on the device prior to launch, see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 934,093 to North.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,124,738 to Johnsen discloses a front-loading or side-loading wire headend and requires the use of a single continuous piece of metal to construct the entirety of the clay target throwing device to achieve a purported extraordinary simplicity arising from the complete lack of pivoting parts. U.S. Pat. No. 663,090 to Pike et al. discloses the use of a front-loading wire clip for use with a handle, wherein the wire component is bent to form a loop or loops to attach to the handle and act as a pivot point, such that the wire clip is capable of being turned to any desired angle relative to the handle or may be rigidly secured.
Accordingly, the prior art provides several examples of sub-optimal hand-held clay target throwers which, among other things: require too many components which frustrate their manufacture and use; eliminate inclusion of a pivot point which results in a loss of beneficial momentum to the clay target upon launch; require loading techniques that disrupt the smooth operation and function of the device and/or promote clay target or clay pigeon breakage, thus, increasing the cost of clay target shooting and decreasing user enjoyment; failing to produce variable flight patterns; and that make their productive and recreational use unnecessarily difficult by not including reliable or consistent self-cocking block and release or launch mechanisms.